A driver has been banned and given a suspended prison sentence after his dangerous driving was caught on a dash cam.

Harvey Schofield was filmed undertaking a tipper truck, before pulling in front and deliberately braking on the M56 in Cheshire on 30 March 2017. The case against him was raised after a member of the public submitted the footage.

Schofield, 53, of Offerton, Stockport was handed a 12 week suspended prison sentence, 200 hours community service and a £620 fine after being found guilty by Chester Magistrates’ Court of dangerous driving. He was also disqualified from driving for 12 months and ordered to take an extended driving test.

The case is believed to be the first of its kind in Cheshire where a motorist has been prosecuted for dangerous driving as a result of dash cam footage.

The case is believed to be the first of its kind in Cheshire where a motorist has been prosecuted for dangerous driving as a result of dash cam footage.

PC Liz Thompson from the Serious and Complex Collision Investigation Unit, Cheshire Police said: "Firstly I would like to thank the member of the public who submitted the footage, without their support this prosecution would not have been possible.

"The footage clearly showed that Schofield deliberately undertook the tipper truck, then for no apparent reason deliberately pulled out into the path of the vehicle and intentionally slammed on his brakes.

"Thankfully the driver of the truck was able to stop his vehicle in time and did not collide with Schofield’s car. However, I have no doubt that had it not been for the drivers quick-thinking actions, there could have been a serious collision, and the lives of innocent motorists could have been put at risk."

Comments

Jo Knight
on 5 March 2018

Why was the lorry in the outside lane of an almost empty road and presumably with a slow speed limit? If he had been in the oinside lane the car dirver could have overaken safely. It doesn't excue his action particularly beaking in front of the lorry, but I wonder if anyone had a word with the lorry driver?

In the footage shown the nearside lane appears clear, so why is the lorry in the outside lane?
On the footage shown the car went past a vehicle willfully obstructing the highway.
His unlawful action was in then pulling out in front of the obstructing vehicle and braking for no lawful reason.

Why was the lorry in the outside lane of an almost empty road and presumably with a slow speed limit? If he had been in the oinside lane the car dirver could have overaken safely. It doesn't excue his action particularly beaking in front of the lorry, but I wonder if anyone had a word with the lorry driver?

The tipper lorry was overtaking the other lorry (with the dash cam). The tipper was leaving a gap between the other lorry before pulling back in.

If the tipper hadn't left a gap and had to brake sharply (say due to an Audi braking sharply in front of it) then the other lorry would have crashed into the back of it. Probablly resulting in the death of the dash cam lorry driver, who hadn't done anything wrong.

The Audi driver should have been banned for life! And jailed for being so reckless!

Why was the lorry in the outside lane of an almost empty road and presumably with a slow speed limit? If he had been in the oinside lane the car dirver could have overaken safely. It doesn't excue his action particularly beaking in front of the lorry, but I wonder if anyone had a word with the lorry driver?

The tipper lorry was overtaking the other lorry (with the dash cam). The tipper was leaving a gap between the other lorry before pulling back in.

If the tipper hadn't left a gap and had to brake sharply (say due to an Audi braking sharply in front of it) then the other lorry would have crashed into the back of it. Probablly resulting in the death of the dash cam lorry driver, who hadn't done anything wrong.

The Audi driver should have been banned for life! And jailed for being so reckless!

That's nonsense and the overtaking lorry had loads of time to pull back in so the inexcusable Audi driver passed in frustration.

Where do you download these dash cam videos Everyone has videos of idiot drivers , I personally have 2 . Racing on the main road and an idiot driving through red lights, nearly causing a head on crash if it had not been for other road users having to brake hard. As there are no Police on the roads who upkeeps the law. They always ask for dashcam videos after the accident why don't they use them first to prevent serious accidents and deaths on the road.

Where do you download these dash cam videos Everyone has videos of idiot drivers , I personally have 2 . Racing on the main road and an idiot driving through red lights, nearly causing a head on crash if it had not been for other road users having to brake hard. As there are no Police on the roads who upkeeps the law. They always ask for dashcam videos after the accident why don't they use them first to prevent serious accidents and deaths on the road.

I agree See reply12/03/18

When I asked two seperate police forces if they were interested in footage of vehicles crossing red lights when it was perfectly easy to stop, both of them didn't reply!

A decent sentence, but they need to start getting equally tough with mobile phone use, and start handing out driving bans to the growing number of idiots playing about with their Mobile phones whilst driving. If you are not mature enough to put down your adult comfort blanket whilst you drive, (no doubt for fear of some kind of separation anxiety), then take the bus!.

An all to common occurrence nowadays, I drive a vehicle fitted with a speed limiter and regularly find impatient drivers acting in a similar way often cutting in front of me from the outside lane, doing the same as the Audi driver then rapidly accelerating away.

Vehicles are made far too fast by manufacturers, the cars of the 60's and 70's could almost all reach the national speed limit without this senseless need to create something 0-60 in the blink of an eye and a top speed exceeding well over the ton.

With all this speed monitoring now and camera's everywhere shouldn't we be creating limited performance more environmentally friendly vehicle's instead. It seems so many nowadays thing they are playing a computer game instead of acting sensibly, your playing with real peoples lives, as the courts have judged in this case.

No details seem to be given as to the speed of the lorry and the car. I don't think that it is against the law for a lorry to be in the outside lane per se. One thing seems clear, however, it is yet another Audi driver causing trouble on the roads.

Mr Audi driver you were very naughty although I am sure he did not 'slam' on his brakes as if he did he would probably be dead. Basic rule of physics here and we all know it. Just good journalistic banter.

Car drivers with any brains do not play with trucks as they know they will always lose. Yes there are brainless car drivers out there but lorry drivers know their size advantage and do use it when convenient.

If Mr Tipper truck driver didn't know what he was doing (hanging out there on purpose to wind Mr Audi driver up) then my money is on he was fiddling with his phone. I bet it was the former as we have ll been there behind the 'elephant racers' mile after mile, he probably got a flash and Mr tipper driver was being b***** awkward.

HGV drivers used to be known as the " knights of the Road ". I'm afraid that ( in the UK at least ) many of them are the s***es of the road with their " might is right " methods of handling their vehicles ! Clearly the HGV driver in the video could have signalled the intention to return to the inside lane after the claimed overtaking. I suspect that the car driver was foolishly impatient and was stupid enough to "undertake" and even more crass to act as shown by swerving in front of the HGV.

This looks like 6 of one and half a dozen of the other. The lorry didn't seem to want to pull back into the nearside in a reasonable time. The car driver should not have put his brakes on in front of the lorry and should have exercised more patience. Did the car driver need his car for his livelihood? It's a great shame that we can't have 2 or parallel road systems, one for lorries and commercial, and one for cars and domestic use. Mixing lorries and cars was never a good idea. There are many dead drivers thanks for lorry related crashes.

Lorry passing another so leaving clear space before pulls in to left hand lane - fine. Pity the lorry driver couldn't have minced the Audi.
Another example of Audi/BMW/Merc/some 4 by 4 lease car driving. These people can only afford to run these cars by leasing (not being able to calculate the true expense of such arrangements) and were probably bus passengers a few years ago; they should be back on the buses or walking. They don't use indicators, are often aggressive and fast and never give way when they should. Older BMW's are blinged up and used by drug dealers.

Lorry passing another so leaving clear space before pulls in to left hand lane - fine. Pity the lorry driver couldn't have minced the Audi. Another example of Audi/BMW/Merc/some 4 by 4 lease car driving.l

When I see footage like this I'm more convinced than ever to hold on to my 22 year old, 2 ton 4x4 (used for my farm work) as idiots driving shiny cars tend to give it a wide berth. Too many cars on too little road I'm afraid but that genie is well and truly out of the bottle now and no mistake. Be safe out there and drive aware at all times.

How much of a gap does the lorry driver need to leave before pulling safely back in?
Most lorry drivers don’t need to leave anywhere near that much space, especially as he is already increasing the gap as he is overtaking.

I am guessing all the "why didnt the tipper pull in earlier" comments are from people who either dont have a dashcam, or have never compared its recording to what they can see.

Dashcams have a WIDE ANGLE lens; this makes everything look a lot further away than it really is. In real life that Audi pulled in front of the dashcam equipped lorry with no more than a couple of feet clearance, and the gap between the dashcam lorry and the tipper was barely more than the length of the Audi.

Whilst driving in heavy traffic (30mph zone), I had an idiot do something similar to me, back when I drove an old 2 tonne clanker; he stomped his brakes on and gave me the finger - so I rammed him.

Not a scratch on the clanker; made a nice mess of the back of his hot hatch.

FiestaOwner was right in that the lorry had passed the one with the dashcam but hadn't pulled in yet.
Clearly the Audi driver was ridiculously impatient and unwilling to wait for the tipper to pull in so undertook him then cut in front of him and braked to "teach him a lesson" for daring to block the road and slow down an Audi driver (incidentally I drive an Audi too!).
I see such events nearly every time I drive on a motorway.

The biggest issue here is the growing probability that use of dashcam footage will be used even for simple mistakes on the road. As it is, the UK has the most cameras per person in the world, now we have 'Big Brother' on the road. Yes the actions of this driver was stupid, but the sentencing was way over the top. Give him a decent fine and 6 points, but a suspended prison sentence, a ban and a retest is over the top. Clearly, he's become another scapegoat and a way to scare the rest of us into thinking we'll be the next victims of out-of-proportion punishment.
Perhaps the reason for this overreaction is because Police numbers are falling and most drivers get away with offences. Like the Police, Camera, Action genre of TV programmes, the propaganda is designed to convince us we will get caught if we do anything wrong - this is certainly not so. Police should only use dashcam footage in the most serious cases - not sure if this is one of them.

Totally agree with you. The tipper lorry - true to form as the cowboys of the HGV drivers - has more than likely wound the Audi driver up to such a degree that he has lost his temper and made the mistake of losing control. Yes he cut the dash cam equiped HGV up and proceeded to undertake the obstructive tipper - there is no excuse for rejoining the overtaking lane and applying his brakes. I would like to know if the HGV dash cam driver has any connection with the tipper driver and if he was guilty of helping to wind up the Audi driver in any way.

The sentence passed on the Audi driver is crazy when you see uninsured, unlicensed banger drivers getting away with little more than a slap on the wrist. If he was employed eg as a salesman he would also lose his job. As an ex UK salesman it was becoming impossible to drive in the UK. Cameras everywhere, mobile camera vans in sneaky positions and now rats with dash cams. So glad I now drive in the most dangerous country in the world, not enjoyable but completely the other side of the coin to the UK. Just beep your horn here and the response could be that of the UK Audi driver - or worse.

I have sent three similar footage's to three different police forces with varying results.
In a similar event on the M25 where a car did exactly the same as the video in this subject. The Metropolitan police said they would speak to the driver, I don't know if they did but they made a promise to do so.
The other two incidents, in my opinion more serious, the police reactions were similar.
Both incidents involved vehicles crossing red traffic lights where I had stopped normally but following vehicles couldn't be bothered. Fortunately there were no accidents.
Warwickshire Police didn't bother to reply when I asked if they were interested.
Staffordshire Police asked me to send the video but I never heard any more!

But all is not lost because when the police start to charge us for exceeding the speed limit by one mile/hour all accidents will stop, or so they would have us believe.

For Goodness sake !! The lorry stayed in the outside lane until he felt confident that he could pull back into the nearside lane and leave the camera vehicle with SUFFICIENT STOPPING DISTANCE ie. not on his front bumper. The Audi driver did not have the patience to wait the extra 5 seconds.

The issue here is that the tipper was taking miles to pass the other truck. See longer video clip. Why oh why don’t the truckers that are being overtaken just ease off a bit to let the faster truck pass without holding up faster traffic. I always do this for trucks when towing my caravan why can’t they. HGVS are limited they are not flat out and can quickly regain lost speed. Truck drivers like this are selfish idiots who should be punished

Also the punishment dished out by the magistrates was out of all proportion to the alleged crime. If you watch the video though the Audi flashed his brake lights he did not slam on his brakes as alleged by the police officer, you can see the truck barely braked or slowed down. The Audi Driver was probably at the end of his tether having encountered rolling truck roadblocks many times already that day, this happens to me very frequently on dual carrageways as I drive around the country a great deal. Having said all that what the Audi driver did was childish and potentially dangerous

Sadly this what we have to accept with people that drive Audi's. The worse driven car of any type on the road today why would anyone want to have an Audi all it says about you is that it is a company car and I will drive how I like !
They now make BMW drivers seem like saints.